Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Art Of Subconscious Illusion"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

A living nightmare, asleep but still aware.
The endless torture.
The painless pleasure.
I grasp myself.
Trying to regain control.
I experience and learn.
In another faction of my mind.
So confused.
But everything makes perfect sense.
Can't feel the pain.
Emotional pain s so much deadlier.
Lost, you've just been raped.
Pain. Your friends can't help you.
Why wont they help you? Another reality.
This can't be happening.
Why is this happening?
Who the f**k are you?
Who the f**k. Are you?
Trying hard to figure out what s done.
I scramble but now I run.
The images in my head.
All the problems that I've been fed.
Punching slowly my mind can't change the speed.
As my victims bleed.
No matter what I do or how hard I try.
I can t use my abilities.
Use my abilities.
Art of Illusion.
My razor sharp knife s edge, pierces my victim's body.
But I can't take their soul.
Punching through jello, stabbing not killing.
Disappointment. Discomfort.

The poet has invited us into his inner world, a confusing place where two realities have an uneasy coexistence. In the one reality lives his friends, those who love him. In the other reality is his inner torture, where dark memories make him quiver in pain, and yet there is pleasure too. As he relives each traumatic scene, he tries to rewrite the past, but he can't. His victims (those who have hurt him? People he has himself hurt? The memories themselves?) don't die, they are like jello. His now more mature abilities to cope and conquer don't work in these scenes from the past.

There are inner voices at work here, sometimes accusing, sometimes needling -- why won't his friends help him? His friends can't help him, he's too far gone.

Emotional pain is much deadlier than physical pain. Jesus speaks to those who bring Him the baggage of their past, and their pain, saying

If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the [teaching] I give you. Put it on your shoulders [like a yoke] and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest.

For those who take Jesus' at His word, He does an amazing thing. He heals you from the inside out, all the filth that others left in you, all the awful things they put inside you, even rape, even molestation, abuse, neglect, the breaking of your heart, all the crushing that some of us have endured, it all gets cleaned away.

And the stuff you did, those memories that, like an aching tooth, won't stop hurting, all that dark and terrible burden, is taken away. The apostles John and Peter both talk about it in their letters. They had a lot to be cleaned up in their lives. But Jesus did it. John said

If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won't let us down; he'll be true to himself. He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing [our own, and others' scars left on us].

The apostle Paul talked about the other way, the way of Judas. Another of Jesus' disciples, Judas decided he was too far gone, so he didn't bring his pain to Jesus. He didn't believe Jesus could help him. He committed suicide instead. Paul warned,

Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.

Which way will this poet turn?

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment and join the conversation